


Foolish

by Nepthys



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-02
Updated: 2008-04-02
Packaged: 2017-10-06 00:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nepthys/pseuds/Nepthys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gene wonders how Sam talked him into a whole week in Brighton, just the two of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foolish

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the prompt: "Sam/Gene in Brighton: foolish but not illegal."

He wonders how Sam talked him into this. Talked him into a whole week in Brighton, just the two of them. He was worried that it was foolish, but he’s not complaining now that they are here.

 

It’s been ages since his last holiday – Blackpool, 1969, with Vera and her sister’s family. Thank god he’ll never have to live through that particular hell again.

 

No. Here, now, with Sam – this really feels like a holiday. What a holiday is _supposed_ to feel like, he thinks.

 

He looks at Sam, all golden and smooth in the light of the afternoon sun. Sam had insisted that they used sun-cream for the first couple of days (though what was wrong with oil, Gene still didn’t really know, despite the explanations involving melons, or some such nonsense).

 

And he is glistening, skin damp with sweat and saltwater.

 

And despite knowing (from their activities yesterday) that the sun-cream definitely does _not_ taste nice, Gene still wants to run a tongue down that torso, into the hollows below Sam’s ribs, into the dip of his belly-button and the sharp angle of his hips.

 

Wants to, but can’t.

 

Not here, anyway. Not on a beach in broad daylight, with families scattered around on the pebbles; windbreaks and umbrellas, grannies and little kiddies, rolled-up trouser legs and knotted hankies.

 

But at night they can touch. Touch when they walk along the deserted beach – or at least nearly deserted, and the other people out there aren’t interested in looking at Sam and Gene, and don’t want anyone looking them, either. Touch casually at the pier - when he had steadied Sam’s arm to shoot at the penguins (not that he needed steadying, of course – damn good shot for a nancy boy). Touch at night in bed – in the twin beds they had shoved together and wrapped his belt around the legs to hold in place.

 

He can’t remember when he last felt like this.  Giddy. Light-headed, even (not that he’d ever admit that to Sam). He doesn’t ever remember shouldering the cares of the world, but now he thinks he knows how it feels when they are lifted. He feels unbalanced, as though his centre of gravity has somehow shifted. He thinks of a snake, shedding its skin.

 

He looks at Sam, stretched out lithe and careless as a cat in the sun and knows, just _knows_ he feels the same thing.

 

He was worried that they were being foolish. But they’ve been careful. Mostly.He’d had to kick Sam’s ankle at the Bed &amp; Breakfast when he’d accidentally asked for a double room.

 

But no-one knows them here, which is oddly freeing. Even though Gene is used to knowing the smells and sounds of his city, the turn of each street and the ebb and flow of its people. He thought he would be uneasy here, in unknown territory, but Brighton has welcomed them in and made room for them.

 

They went to the dog track last night, and tonight they are planning to go to the casino (with a burst of foresight, Gene has made sure they applied for membership through the normal route, rather than flashing his warrant card. Not so foolish.)

 

Except that he can’t get over this feeling of unevenness, of lightness. As though he’s going to float away like one of the balloons that bloke is selling on the pier. He’s not sure he’s ever felt like this.

 

And now he knows he really is being foolish. Because he thinks he might be in love.

 

But he doesn’t care. Because when Sam turns his head and smiles at him, that wide smile that warms Gene more than the sun ever could, he doesn’t care if they _are_ foolish - he’s so glad Sam talked him into this. 

 

END


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